The Reverend Gary Davis had been an early influence on Kaukonen, and two of his songs were included on the album, with an additional pair included on the 1996 reissue. Casady and Kaukonen demonstrated their familiarity with early jazz and ragtime as well as blues by the inclusion of "Hesitation Blues," recorded by the Victor Military Band in 1916, and the inclusion of two numbers attributed to Jelly Roll Morton. They also ignored any purist notions of the delta blues with their cover of "How Long Blues" by Leroy Carr, who not only was not from the Mississippi Delta and did not play guitar, but was also one of the commercial urban blues successes of the 1930s.